by Daryl Sneath
I clicked on the YouTube video of @d_man’s one-shot TKO of yours truly (one of his friends must have been recording it). How could I not? It was laughable really. We were both swaying in the wind in the parking lot behind Shebeen. I held my fists up way out in front like I was mocking the whole thing (which I wasn’t—I was scared shitless to be honest), like I was one of those black-and-white sped-up silent-film pugilists from the 1920s. Danny Mann stood a good two strides away, opposite me with his fists at his sides, like an ape. Karl Knotold provided the commentary: ‘Good evening, fight fans, we’re here in Gastown in the back parking lot of Shebeen and Danny Mann is about to defend the honour of his unrequited love who is standing here with me now, our lady Bond, Scotch in one hand, cigar in the other. Calm, cool, collected.
‘So, Miss Argent, the fans want to know, who are you rooting for in this epic man-against-man battle for love?’
‘Oh, Karl, don’t be silly. This is not about love and even if it were, love isn’t something a man should have to battle for. Didn’t your mother ever teach you that?’
‘Well, there you have it, folks. Slice your hearts out. The cold hard truth from the oh-so sensuous lips of our Lady Bond as she stands here sipping her single malt and puffing her Romeo y Julieta. No irony intended.’
One other thing. Upon looking more closely at the feed, it seems the last tweet VA thumbed into my phone was posted mere minutes before I read it. It was probably the door clicking shut on her way out that woke me. She likely shut it loudly on purpose. I’m sure if I’d gone over and looked out the window I would’ve seen her leaving the hotel. She would have paused and looked up. She would’ve smiled—like in the movies—and walked away.
VICTORIAN HOTEL: VANCOUVER, BC
I was just waking up. The side of my face ached in the shape of a fist. It took me a moment to realize where I was exactly. I sat up in bed and looked around the room. It felt like something from a home reno show. The fake flowers on the breakfast-nook table matched the colours of the walls and the accents in the bedspread and pillows: creamy white, rusty red. The hardwood floors complemented the antique desk and dresser drawers: distressed and aged and used, evocative of other lives. The alarm clock on the antique bedside table said 10:55 which I read as loss. I picked up my phone and read the Twitter feed waiting for me there. My head hurt. I shut my eyes and when I did the night began to return.
. . .
Standing outside Vancouver International an hour after landing, I was alone in the big city as the sun was going down. Like Holden Caulfield, only older and Canadian and not exactly down on my luck.
I took the napkin from my pocket and unfolded it.
Valerie Argent. 778.786.7867.
I thumbed the number and sent a text.
—So I asked a woman walking by if she knew where’s Shebeen. She said of course she knew where she’s been but what the hell was it to me.
—Ha . . . vodka martini . . . I’ll meet you out front.
Through the window of the cab I watched the city hum. As we got closer to Gastown and the harbour behind it I could smell the ocean air. Different from the lake and river air of other towns I knew. The people, as diverse as in Toronto or Montreal, seemed a little different somehow. Friendlier maybe. It was hard to tell at first but they seemed less hurried. Like they’d been rained on a lot and were okay with it.
The cabbie pulled up in front of The Irish Heather. I paid him, took my leave, and stood out front facing the pub, suitcase hanging at my side. A group of six or seven barhoppers walked by, abuzz and laughing. I looked into the street and breathed deeply in through my nose. This was the place.
Without notice I felt someone behind me. I turned and there she was. Valerie Argent. Zippered, calf-hugging, black leather boots to her knees. Lowrider designer jeans like they’d been painted on. A thick black belt hugging her hips and a silver buckle. A thin silvery shirt, lowcut and midriff-revealing. Two silver bangles on her left wrist, a small silver ring in her nose. She wore no makeup. Her hair was pulled back but not as severely as it had been on the plane. There were loose strands, like they’d escaped, like they’d been freed. Deliberately casual. The pink streak was no longer narrow and hiding. She had the kind of relaxed confidence politicians often go for but never quite attain. She had a highball of Scotch which wouldn’t have been allowed outside the pub. (One of the first things I learned about her was she cared very little for rules.) There was a smirk on her face and she raised one eyebrow which lowered the other and made her eyes look a little evil. Everything about her shimmered.
She sipped the Scotch. ‘Nice suitcase. My grandparents have one just like it. Only newer.’
I’d borrowed the suitcase from Stephen and Serra. It was two-tone brown, like the truck, hard-shelled, and had two lockable buckles that flicked open with a spring-loaded snap when you thumb-slid the buttons away from the centre.
‘Funny. So do mine.’ I raised the suitcase a little and looked at it. ‘At least they did.’
She grinned and when she turned around she paused. Like on a catwalk. I’d been right about the tattoo beneath the scarf. An Asian symbol just below and behind her right ear. There were two others. One between her shoulder blades in the space between the two clear straps that held up her shirt: the stylized words Silver Light. And one in the small of her back, half hidden by her jeans: a pair of Queens, hearts and spades, fanned out like someone had laid a winning hand there and somehow it had stuck.
When she stepped toward the door of The Irish Heather she moved like she was in control of every single muscle in her body and I followed like she’d somehow tapped into every single one of mine.
The Heather was a long narrow place, rich-looking and dark. The people inside all had a glow about them, well-heeled and sure of themselves, having landed in early adulthood on the right side of life, and my own confidence grew somehow the further I moved in.
Valerie slid right through the place and drew the eyes of everyone there. The bartender raised his chin when we walked by. In typical filmic fashion he was drying a glass with the end of a towel draped over his shoulder and he was wearing a white shirt rolled to the elbows. I felt him staring at me even after we’d passed.
‘Hey, Val.’
Until now she had not looked back. She paused at the door to the backroom, the sign above which read SHEBEEN, and turned. She could have said I was carrying a bomb in my suitcase and proclaimed us holy soldiers of God, sent by our heavenly father to put an end to all earthly debauchery and sinful Satan-led ways and I’m sure they’d have all dropped to their knees, every single one, pleading for forgiveness and mercy. Further to her blatant disregard of the rules it was clear from the outset that Valerie could make most people—especially men—do anything she wanted them to do. And she knew it.
The Bartender: ‘Looks like Little Red Riding Hood’s lost his way.’
She looked at me in the hoodie I was wearing and shrugged. ‘He works for Google. All IT guys under forty dress like they have no money.’
The bartender crossed his arms. ‘Google. This guy.’
She flashed him a smile. ‘He’s cool. I served him on the plane.’
‘First class, I’m sure.’
‘Coach actually. He’s a leftist. Doesn’t even own a car. Bikes everywhere.’
‘I wondered who had the Red Rider Special parked outside.’
She put an arm around me and pinched my chin. ‘He’s got a youthful face. That’s all.’ She spoke looking at me. ‘He’s a man. Trust me.’
The bartender stacked the glass he’d been drying and started on another. ‘I’d like to say you’re lucky, son—’
I didn’t like the ‘son’ bit.
Valerie was opening the door to the backroom when she stopped and spoke over her shoulder. ‘Watch what you say now, Paulie.’
He held the glass up and checked it in the light. ‘—but a luc
ky man doesn’t need another man to tell him about his luck.’
Inside Shebeen I followed her to a table for four where there was only one empty seat. She sat and I stood, suitcase still hanging at my side. The man at the table—Karl Knotold, I’d come to know—coiffed and good-looking and sure of himself, in his late twenties, early thirties I guessed—though he had the kind of face that made it hard to tell—was in the middle of a story about a cougar. He was sitting on the edge of his chair, leaning across the table. The two women opposite him, dressed like Valerie and beyond beautiful like her, in their twenties, too, I guessed (though they could easily have been my age), were also on the edges of their chairs, shoulders touching. Engrossed. Eyes wide.
‘So, there I am, walking innocently along, inside my head trying to work through a problematic ending for a story I was writing, the sun going down, the temperature dropping just enough to be pleasant, blissfully alone on a quiet trail in the middle of the woods, ruminating, when all of a sudden, BAM.’ He smacked the table and the two girls jumped and laughed despite themselves. ‘It came to me. There is no ending. And that’s the point. Problem solved. Story done. Genius. Prize-winning for sure. Relieved and eager to get back to my laptop to delete the unfinished ending and pour myself a celebratory finger or two of Johnny Walker Blue, I stopped, about to turn and head back, and there she is, two maybe three strides in front of me, this wild, lithe-looking cat, staring me down. So what do I do? What are my options here? Run? There’s no way. Play dead? A lot of good that would do should she decide to pad over for a pre-prandial sniff and nibble. Scream? What if that excites her? Enlivens the blood in her veins? So there I am. Stuck. Nowhere to turn, nothing to do. You always, always have a choice, say the pundits of free will. Well, not me. Not this time. Not at that moment. I was truly and utterly optionless. Frozen. Cock stiff.’
He leaned back and sipped his Scotch, glanced at Valerie, who was sitting beside him, and grinned. The other two girls looked at each other, then at him. One of them tapped her feet under the table like she were sprinting and hunched her shoulders, tucked her chin and held her face in her hands.
The other leaned forward and slapped the table with two open hands. ‘Well? What happened? What did you do?’
Karl glanced at Valerie again, then up at me. He winked.
‘I approached with caution and asked her not to bite.’
The table-slapper furrowed her brow. ‘You approached a cougar and spoke to it.’
He shook his head. ‘I was mistaken. Turns out she wasn’t a cougar. Only thirty-eight.’
Valerie, leaning back in her chair, snickered and sipped her Scotch. The other two smiled and shook their heads.
Karl crossed his arms, took in the suitcase I was holding, and looked up at me. ‘So. What’s your story, Paddington Bear?’
I set the suitcase down and pocketed my hands. ‘I’m a runner.’
I don’t why I said that.
‘Well. Pull up a chair, runnerboy. If you’re with Val you must be the gold standard best.’
I stole a chair from the next table and sat. I felt like I should be presenting something. An entrepreneur pitching an idea to a table of potential backers. Four sets of eyes on me, waiting for me to speak.
‘Mr. Sorn here is an original.’ This was Valerie.
Karl nodded. ‘Is that so.’
‘He used a library card for ID on the plane.’
‘Did he. And how did that work out for you, Mr. . . ?’
I answered. ‘Sorn.’
‘Sorn. What an unusual name.’
‘Vector Sorn.’
The table-slapper scrunched her nose and repeated my name, nodded and sounded her approval. ‘Vector Sorn. Cool. I like it.’
What would it have meant, I wondered, if she hadn’t?
Karl: ‘So. Vector Sorn. Back to my question.’
I looked at Valerie. ‘I’m here aren’t I?’
Karl nodded. ‘That’s true. You are here. Here is where you are.’ He clasped his hands and leaned towards me across the table. ‘And why is that, Vector Sorn. Why are you here, exactly?’
‘Ooh, ooh, let me guess.’ This was the toe-tapper.
Karl leaned back and presented her with a hand like he were introducing an act. ‘Mr. Sorn, let me introduce Miss Veronica Redhill. Clairvoyant extraordinaire.’
Veronica sat straight up, closed her eyes, stuck her elbows out like wings, and touched her temples with the tips of her index fingers. She opened her eyes and looked right at me. ‘You’re trying to get away from someone. More than one. I can see them. There’s a group, only they’re not really a group. One’s a teacher. The other’s a—oh, I can’t quite get it—a doctor or something. And, oh. Oh, no. I’d better not say.’
I could feel my heart going.
Karl: ‘Come on now, Ronnie. Don’t hold back. Vector’s all right, aren’t you old boy?’
Karl looked at me, I shrugged, and he urged Veronica on.
She sighed and put her hands together, touched the tips of her fingers to her lips like a woman at prayer. She sighed again and stared at me as though she were in pain. ‘The one you’re really trying to get away from is—your father.’
Karl, the table-slapper (whose name I still didn’t have), and Valerie all looked at me. I nodded.
Karl clapped. ‘Oh, she’s good. Isn’t she good?’ He pointed at her. ‘You’re good.’
I agreed with Karl, that indeed she was good, but I wondered out loud if she wasn’t just a little bit lucky too. I mean, really, he had to agree, most eighteen-year-olds leave home to get away from their parents for one reason or another.
Karl nodded and looked around the table. ‘He has a point.’
The table-slapper: ‘What about the doctor and the teacher?’
‘Yes, Vanessa.’ Karl pointed at her, then at me. It was like he had money invested in Veronica’s clairvoyance. ‘Yes. The doctor and the teacher. What about them?’ He leaned in and waited.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘there was a psychiatrist and a phys-ed teacher. A coach.’
Karl clapped once and held his hands together. He stood and bowed toward Veronica. He sat again and looked at me. ‘Let me guess. The coach was abusive and the psychiatrist blabbed about it.’
I shook my head and looked at Veronica.
She closed her eyes. ‘I’m not getting anything particularly strong for either one.’
I nodded. ‘That sounds about right.’
Valerie sat forward and looked at me. (I’d have done anything she wanted.) ‘I don’t think there’s anything interesting about the lap counter or the shrink. They are what they do. What I want to know is what the father did to make our man here want to leave.’
Our man. I wasn’t sure about the accuracy of either word.
Karl took the thick black frames that had been resting on the top of his head and slid them into place. He looked like Clark Kent, only more stylish and confident. ‘Miss Argent, right for the jugular.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘But before we get any further on the father I think we need to replenish our rhenish. Vector, name your whiskey, old boy. It’s on me.’
‘I’d be lying if I said I knew.’
He rubbed his hands together again. ‘Pick a letter.’
I looked around the table. ‘V.’
Karl checked the high ceiling and cracked his knuckles. ‘Nothing on the list starts with V. And there’s nothing from Canada or the States with a V in it. Nothing from Ireland either. From the World selection we have Australia’s Sullivans Cove. From Premium Blends, Chivas Revolve. And from Scotland, the one true heaven on earth, we have four. Glenlivet, Balvenie, and Convalmore. All from Speyside. And from the Islet of Islay, Lagavulin.’
He looked at me, grinning, and waited.
I was careful not to shrug. ‘I like the sound of the last one.’
&nb
sp; ‘Lagavulin. Excellent. And I promise.’ He shoved the centre of his thick black glasses with an index finger. ‘She’ll be gentle.’
He was gone and back again, it seemed, within seconds with a tray of highballs and five cigars. ‘Balvenie for the Redhill sisters.’ So they were sisters. ‘Johnny Walker Blue for yours truly. And two Lagavulin. One for our lady of the sky and one for her lad in the making.’
Lad in the making. I’d remember that.
He raised his glass and the table followed. ‘With the running I wasn’t sure if you’d partake but I brought you one in case.’
He offered me one of the cigars and I took it, smelled the length of it, held it in my teeth, struck a match, and puffed until it burned.
‘Not your first time, I see.’
‘Special occasions.’
Karl was holding a lighted match for Valerie. Looking at me, he asked what made this particular occasion special. Vanessa Redhill slapped the table and said it was my birthday. I shook my head and looked at her sister who closed her eyes and touched her temples again. She nodded, looked at Valerie, smiled, and said it was love. Love made this occasion special.
I felt the blood go to my cheeks. ‘I was thinking a fresh start.’
Valerie puffed her cigar and looked right at me. ‘Yes. The father. We all want to know.’
I looked at her. ‘I’m not sure you do.’
Karl broke in. ‘Trust me, old boy. She knows what she wants.’
I drew on the cigar and let the smoke out slowly. ‘Well. He’s a murderer.’
I said it like he was a teacher or an engineer or the policeman that he had been.
Like someone about to reveal a secret, Valerie unfolded her arms and leaned across the table. ‘Really.’